historic huguenot street

Historic Huguenot Street is ALWAYS the first place I take visitors to New Paltz. Photographing the well-restored residences of the earliest settlers to the area are always a hit as is strolling among the homes. Recent improvements in interpretation with docents have enriched the experience for visitors.

I was only able to visit the area at night when everything was closed but it had an eerie feel to it. The church and a few homes were decorated for the holidays and the graveyard spooky at night. So steeped in history, it warrants a second visit and is probably missed by most people coming in for dinner or visiting college students. Try to visit when things are open in the early day.

This was the second time I visited the Historic Huguenot Street. The first time was quite a few years ago and I went on the self-guided tour which is still an option. With the self-guided tour you can not enter the buildings nor experience the period costumed performers(students from SUNY) relate the life stories of the Huguenot/Calvinists. The tour will cost you $15 and begins with a short video. The church is the first stop. Take time and check out the headstones from the 1600s and the American Revolution. You are then taken to several homes where costume performs explain the life of the Huguenots who lived in them. Did you know that they often had 8 to 12 children who slept on the one room floor while the parents slept in the bed. In the slave cellar with it's entrance outside the house and one room under the house was the living quarters of ten slaves. The Huguenots/Calvinist did not feel that slavery was immoral. Besides the life-style, their history, architectural style, furnishings, and beliefs and values are revealed in theatrical interpretive portrayals. If you allow yourself to enter the Huguenot world, it will happen due largely to the excellent acting abilities of the students. There is a free parking area, gift shop and museum with interesting artifacts. I spent about four hours touring and walking around. I would not recommend this for kids unless you plan on a shorter experience.

The staff is in period clothing , and give a taste of what it was like to live in the stone houses.This is a seasonal location with limited timely access. Tours are welcome and they have a small gift shop.

The folks at Huguenot St. have upgrade the experience. It has always been a unique and virtually unknown site. Now they have added a variety of tour guides who each give a different experience. If you are passing by it is worth a couple of hours to half a day. It is about 5 minutes from the Thruway exit with free parking.

i just love the stone houses...i was not there this year but in the past years visited many times. during the summer months we enjoyed the tour of the houses. not sure when they do tours as i haven't gone this year. DO GO and enjoy tho!

Must see if you are in the Hudson River Valley. The Huguenot houses have the most MASSIVE ceiling beams and widest floor boards you have ever seen. It is clear that back in the late 1600's adn early 1700's trees were a LOT bigger than any trees you see today. The houses are so interesting and a number of costumed docents who really take you back in time to the day where everyone lived in one room. The tasteful and sparse, yet homey furnishings makes you yearn for simpler times when our lives were not dominated by so much stuff! It was an inspiration to go home and purge my house of all that useless crap! You must see these houses. There are very few places in the US where you can see anything of this vintage, a lot of which is original. Totally something you have to go and check out.

This area has a number of historic buildings and gives the feel of an old village. We didn't take the tour(s) that were available as we were short of time. But all the interesting buildings have signage outside giving brief history. For those taking a tour, there appeared to be guides dressed in period costume to show you round each house. Plenty of opportunities for photos.

We are from London and are used to a lot of history. Whilst visiting our friends, they took us on a car ride round this location and loved it so much that we cycled all the way from Rosendale to see it again on our own. It is so beautiful and we wish we could buy a house there!! There are plaques near all the famous houses or historic buildings and it is well worth a visit. It is free by the way and please respect the residents privacy, we were never stopped as we were very quiet and politely said hello to everyone.

If you want to know about the history of New Paltz this is the place to go. We paid the $15 to do the streets tour to get into the buildings and it was worth it because you can't see inside the buildings if you don't. 2 buildings had ladies who acted out in a character to get you in the mood for the era they were explaining. In the end you need to be interested in the towns history or like to look at old buildings. Just a hint, make sure you go in the morning when your mind and body are more alert. I was tired and probably didn't enjoy it as much as I would have if I was more alert that day.

We showed up at 3pm (place is open till 5pm), and the person at the desk told us we would have to skip a location. You visit the houses in a specific order, so he told us to skip the church, and directed us to what I assume is the second stop. The girl at the second stop was quite confused as to why we would need to skip the church since it was only 3pm, and us coming to her stop first flustered her, and she didn't know what to tell us as an introduction (bigger deal to her than it was to us).The tours are done in a fashion that you step through a "time portal" when you enter the front door, and the guide, in period clothing, is the servant. While it's a novel idea, and some people will enjoy the tour being given that way, the guides spend a fair amount of time saying things like, "oh my master isn't here, but I guess I can show you the house", or "have you come from far", and they'll be surprised by your answer if you don't say something that was around during the time period they are pretending it is. I know this will appeal to some people, but it didn't appeal to us. The actual information on the tour, about the houses, and about the people that lived in them, is lessened by the time spent acting.

While we didn't have the time to stop and do an organized tour, we did at least walk down the street and carefully look at the homes from the exterior. My favorite was the old cemetery. It was scenic, though of course there wasn't much information there. It took about 30 minutes and I'd recommend at least looking if you can't do the tour. I'd recommend doing a tour though.

My girlfriend and I decided to go to the Huguenot Street homes in New Paltz at the last minute. We arrived about 3:30 pm and only the church and two home were open. There is a short video explaining the history of the Huguenots and their journey to the United States. We had a sit-down with the guide at the church who talked about the religious aspect of the Huguenots who settled in the New Paltz area. The guides at the two homes were dressed on period clothing and, once inside the homes, where speaking as if the family were just away for the a few hours.

Seems odd to rate a street, but this one is truly historic! Worth a drive and a look, at the very least. You can park at the town lot and walk along the Wallkill River as well.

I was most pleasantly surprised at our tour of Huguenot Street. The few hours invested here were among the more memorable we spent in the lower Hudson Valley. A few houses were interpreted in the time and style by young actors, students at SUNY New Paltz's theatre program, and their period interpretations, as well as the tours of the other buildings and the history we learned, were wonderful. You don't have to be French Protestant to appreciate Huguenot Street. My advice is go. Leave small children alone as they are distracting and this isn't the type of location they are likely to be mature enough to appreciate but I'd say from the age of 12 on, it's a remarkable place to educate a young and curious child or an older adult.